Feb '14 - Brakes, Fuel, Electrical

February 23

Another very busy month, Not as much visual to show and then took time for vacation last weekend. Nothing like a little beach time to get through the winter. I've been making runs over to my engine builder to drop off parts and keep an eye on progress. Hopefully should have the motor built and ready to run on the dyno in the next few weeks. Also decided not to gamble on the T-5 transmission holding up for very long behind a motor that should push well north of 400 horsepower. Snagged a good deal on a Tremec TKO-600 transmission rated for up to 550-600 ft-lbs of torque. It also has a bit taller first gear...had I known I would use one of these I'd have opted for 3.73 rear gears rather than 3.55. Should be able to zip all the way to 70mph in 2nd gear, giggling insanely the whole way. My only decision now will be whether to convert the transmission to mid-shift so I don't have to use a forward-leaning gear shift lever.

It arrived very well crated up by a cool chap on Long Island. Here it is partially packaged.

And safe and sound in my garage, next to the driveshaft that came with my kit for a 4.6. Unfortunately it's 2.5" too long for my application - I'll either have to swap with someone going with a 4.6 or Coyote, or just have a local shop shorten it. Probably cheaper to just mod it locally with shipping rates lately. The TKO also uses the same bellhousing bolt pattern as the Ford 4-speed toploader that I already had, so that saves a few hundred bucks.

I also managed to get all of the brake lines in this weekend. Routing was done by the previous owner, and while not the neatest job I've seen, it's not bad either and should work fine, so I just snaked all the lines back into position and re-rivited the clips to hold them to the frame.

At the front pedal box..

And the front crossmember...

And the rear braided lines. I'll need to check routing there once I have the wheels on.

I need to fab up a bracket to mount the triple-CNC fluid reservoirs, one reservoir for the front, one for the rear, and one for the hydraulic clutch. I picked up a slave cylinder and bracket that will bolt up to the transmission bellhousing to work the clutch. There isn't a good way to use a cable clutch with the Wilwood pedal box that FFR provides with their complete kits, and a hydraulic should be smoother anyway. With the pedals they're using there is a bit of interference with one of the 3/4" frame tubes in the pedal box area. It too a little bit of a notch in the tube to get the full swing of the clutch pedal. It has a 3/4" master cylinder and I made need to go bigger to disengage the clutch completely - we shall see.

I also dropped the battery in and started roughing in the cable routing. Good old Optima gel battery. Gonna have to wait to route the cables properly until I know if I"m going to cut and reweld one of the transmission tunnel tubes for the midshifter. Stay tuned.